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Thursday, 21 November 2013

NO MAN'S LAND

An Irish Airman Foresees His Death

I know that I shall meet my fate

Somewhere among the clouds above;

Those that I fight I do not hate,

Those that I guard I do not love;

My country is Kiltartan Cross,

My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,

No likely end could bring them loss

Or leave them happier than before.

Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,

Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,

A lonely impulse of delight

Drove to this tumult in the clouds;

I balanced all, brought all to mind,

The years to come seemed waste of breath,

A waste of breath the years behind

In balance with this life, this death.

William Butler Yeats

"An Irish Airman Forsees His Death" was first published in the second edition of The Wild Swans at Coole 1919, "An Irish Airman Forsees His Death" is one of four poems written about Major Robert Gregory, the only son of Lady Gregory by Irish poet, dramatist, and folklorist WB Yeats. The other three poems include "The Sad Shepherd" or "Shepherd and Goatherd", "In Memory of Major Robert Gregory," and "Reprisals," which were later published after Yeats's death.

I remember on a cycling holiday, visiting that part of Europe where the First World war was concentrated and reading a brochure which stated, that every inch of that soil, was soaked in blood from incessant wars. When I saw a marker there for an unknown airman, who lost his life in the first World war, I thought of this poem and of Ireland and wept.

Thursday, November 21, 2013

Soldiers from an undercover unit used by the British army in Northern Ireland killed unarmed civilians, former members have told BBC One's Panorama.

Speaking publicly for the first time, the ex-members of the Military Reaction Force (MRF), which was disbanded in 1973, said they had been tasked with "hunting down" IRA members in Belfast.

The former soldiers said they believed the unit had saved many lives.

The Ministry of Defence said it had referred the disclosures to police.

The BBC has identified ten murders that this death squad was responsible for, and there will likely be more. But after 40 years, the units records have all been destroyed, and it will be difficult to bring the murderers to justice. And Northern Ireland's Attorney-General doesn't exactly seem keen on doing his job.

Several people who had no paramilitary connections killed and wounded by secret British army secret unit, according to Panorama

Former members of the Military Reaction Force (MRF) said that they killed an unspecified number of IRA members and shot them regardless of whether or not they were armed.

The British army ran an undercover unit that operated a sanctioned shoot-to-kill policy in Belfast during the Troubles, it has been claimed.

Former members of the Military Reaction Force (MRF) said that they killed an unspecified number of IRA members and shot them regardless of whether or not they were armed.

The force killed at least two men in drive-by shootings who had no paramilitary connections and injured more than 10 other civilians, it is further claimed in the BBCPanorama programme, Britain’s Secret Terror Force which is being broadcast tonight.

Seven former members of the force spoke to reporter John Ware about their involvement in the unit, which was commanded at brigadier level, while three of them appeared on camera, albeit disguised and with their voices slightly altered.

Drive-by shootingsPanorama reports that there were several drive-by shootings carried out by MRF soldiers in which people were killed and wounded – even though there is no independent evidence that any of them were armed or were members of the IRA.

“We were not there to act like an army unit, we were there to act like a terror group,” said one former soldier. “We were there in a position to go after the IRA and kill them when we found them.”

The force comprised about 40 men hand-picked from across the British army who operated in west Belfast for an 18-month period between 1971 and 1973, including all through 1972.

Some of the soldiers said they would shoot their “targets” even if they were unarmed. None would go into detail about specific incidents they or their colleagues were involved in. Nor is it known how many people they shot. The MRF’s records were destroyed.

The MRF was the forerunner to other similar plainclothes undercover British army units that operated in Northern Ireland. Panorama said the overall commander was an army brigadier. The programme does not make any specific allegation about what or any level of political control it was under.

It notes, however, a 1972 memo from the then British prime minister Ted Heath, at a time when the MRF was about to be disbanded, in which he stated that “special care should be taken” to ensure the British army’s replacement squad “operated within the law”.

They operated at a time when several barricades were erected in nationalist and loyalist areas of Belfast. Some of the soldiers said they would drive by barricades manned by nationalists in west Belfast and open fire. One said this would happen even if they did not see anyone brandishing a firearm.

Panorama details five cases in which more than a dozen people with no paramilitary involvement were shot by the MRF in 1972, including two men who were killed, Patrick McVeigh, a father of six children and a member of the Catholic Ex-Servicemen’s Club, and 18-year-old Daniel Rooney.

It also instances how two young west Belfast men who ran a fruit stall were shot by the MRF who had mistaken them for two IRA members.

Reporter John Ware also tracked to Australia one of the MRF members who was part of an undercover patrol that opened fire on two separate barricades, killing Mr McVeigh and wounding five men. It said that this former soldier, who favoured using a Thompson sub-machine gun, was also part of a drive-by shooting six weeks later on the Glen Roadin west Belfast in which four men were wounded.

Attempted murder This soldier stood trial on three counts of attempted murder but was acquitted. Key information was withheld from the trial, according to Panorama.

Relatives of the MRF’s victims told Panorama that 40 years on, they are still seeking answers. “We want the truth. We don’t want to stop until we get the truth,” said Mr McVeigh’s daughter Patricia.

The soldiers told Panorama they agreed to be interviewed because they believe their role in the fight against the IRA has gone unrecognised.

“LETHAL ALLIES: British Collusion

in Ireland” - Mercier Press

The Pat Finucane Centre appeals to everyone on the island of Ireland carefully to consider the implications of its newly-published book which makes clear collusion was systemic in Mid-Ulster and the border region during the 1970s.

We believe both communities suffered as collusion merely served to fuel the conflict. Both communities, on both sides of the border, also stand to gain an understanding of our shared history,

The PFC believes there is now an incontrovertible case for an agreed truth-recovery process which has the potential to heal the divisions which continue to foster hostility between our communities.

Although the book focuses on 120+ specific victims and their families, it also points out that individual RUC officers and UDR soldiers were killed as Catholic confidence in the rule of law collapsed.

The PFC firmly believes that the facts revealed in the book would never have been made public without the skill and integrity of individual HET officers. We believe that, had the PSNI re-investigated these cases, the truth would have remained buried in RUC files. The limited independence enjoyed by the HET has been steadily undermined by the PSNI.

Although the HET was always a flawed and inadequate mechanism for investigating the past (and must now urgently be replaced with a more independent and accountable process) the PSNI will never command the confidence of the whole community in investigating the past and is not compliant with European human rights law on investigating the past.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

MAIN CONCLUSIONS OF “LETHAL ALLIES”

“Lethal Allies: British Collusion in Ireland” is the outcome of 15 years of research by the PFC alongside over 120 families who were bereaved between 1972 and 1976. Our research concludes there was systemic collusion between security forces and the UVF at that time in Mid-Ulster and in cross-border loyalist attacks.

Collusion is illegal (under both domestic and international law) and clearly unethical - but it also fuelled the conflict as Catholic confidence in the RUC and UDR collapsed leading to public support, or tacit toleration, of violent republicanism.

This led directly to the deaths of RUC and UDR men as well as the 120-plus Catholic civilians on whom the book focuses.

“Lethal Allies” tells how (various permutations of) a gang of loyalist paramilitaries killed 120 people (mainly nationalists) on both sides of the border.

It establishes beyond doubt that a significant number of the gang were also serving members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR).1

The book analyses RUC investigations, links the killings through ballistic and other forensic evidence and explains how the courts dealt with whatever charges were brought.

Where legally possible, it names the perpetrators using previously-unpublished reports prepared for all the families by the Historic Enquiries Team who relied on documentation direct from RUC files.

“Lethal Allies” tells the story of the victims and the effects (psychological, emotional, financial) on bereaved families.

It reflects on the inevitable outcome of these events on the support or toleration given by the Catholic/nationalist community to the aims and methods of the Irish Republican Army.

It analyses the status of targeted victims, finding that in all but one case they were “upwardly-mobile” Catholics who were – either through their own enterprise or hard work – lifting their economic and political aspirations.

At least six of the victims were linked to the SDLP. Only one had any republican links (he was shot dead on the southern side of the border in County Monaghan).

The book recalls the day when 34 people were murdered in Dublin and Monaghan and names those the PFC believes were responsible, critiquing the Irish police (Garda) response and analysing the reports of the investigations ordered by the Irish government under Mr. Justice Henry Barron.

The book also includes a chapter analysing loyalist motivations and methods )”Her Majesty’s Murderers”). It also provides brief biographical details of the main paramilitary personnel.

One chapter (“From Dhofar to Armagh”) recounts the activities of British state forces in successive colonial wars (in Malaya, Palestine, Cyprus, Kenya, Aden etc) drawing parallels with the Irish experience.

It also critiques the thinking of leading British military theorists of counter-insurgency (such as General Sir Frank Kitson and Professor Richard Clutterbuck) and cites opposing theories from human rights, legal and academic sources.

It looks to the future as over 20 families have, as a result of HET reports and other research, now taken formal complaints to the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland. Their cases are pending as is litigation in the High Court against the Chief Constable of the PSNI.

1 Ten RUC officers, 2 auxiliary police officers, 10 UDR soldiers, 1 member of the Territorial Army Volunteer Reserve and 2 British Army soldiers, mostly named in “Lethal Allies”

“Lethal Allies” concludes it can be demonstrated, beyond a reasonable doubt, that there was systemic collusion in these cases and that such denials of human rights never contribute towards peace but merely serve to fuel conflict.

It is counter-intuitive to suggest that the levels of collusion exposed in this book was a phenomenon limited to the murder triangle and border region. As one HET report found,

‘Members of the Nationalist community had been making allegations of widespread involvement and collusion by members of the security forces with loyalist paramilitaries. These claims were ridiculed, and individual instances previously uncovered had been dismissed by reference to ‘rotten apples’. This investigation in 1978 revealed a much more disturbing picture;

the Rock Bar case had the potential to validate claims of widespread and routine collusion.’